Many beginner cooks think that cooking from a recipe is the simplest thing—just find a good one and follow it exactly. But no recipe, even the best one, will tell you how to correctly do such basic things as boiling rice or choosing meat that suits that particular dish. And it won’t explain why you should put a crystal stopper in a pot to get the most flavorful broth. Recipe books won’t teach you the fundamentals of culinary science and technology—yet it is precisely this knowledge, generously shared by Eva Punsch, that will help a thoughtful listener not only successfully handle recipes of any complexity, but also create their own—with confidence, ease, and without fuss.